UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance • Hacker News Board

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#61

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 12:12 PM UTC

peterlawest wrote: post #24

Nursie wrote: post #7

The political silence on this issue is indeed deafening. As was the press silence (other than the Guardian). The press in this country are far more interested in reality tv, political infighting, fanning flames about 'immigrants' and what the royals are up to. And I suspect it's because most of the public don't care either. There are people who would like privacy, who think that GCHQ should be accountable and then th…

I consider myself an educated, well-informed person, and I have no problem whatsoever with government surveillance. Like anything, it can be abused, but I don't think that outweighs the benefits. I think it's sad that it makes you 'angry' that some people simply disagree with you. We have a democracy, and obviously only a minority consider this to be an issue of concern. If you have a problem with it, stand for elect…

Standing for election will potentially get you put on a list of "extremists": http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/15/green-party-...

The question is not so much can it be abused, but to what extent it is being abused. Remember, the security services are not above having people murdered if they're sufficiently troublesome: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-21283169

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#62

Post by rayiner » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 12:14 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #20

Nursie wrote: post #7

The political silence on this issue is indeed deafening. As was the press silence (other than the Guardian). The press in this country are far more interested in reality tv, political infighting, fanning flames about 'immigrants' and what the royals are up to. And I suspect it's because most of the public don't care either. There are people who would like privacy, who think that GCHQ should be accountable and then th…

Don't forget about "the muslim problem" and the "international islamic conspiracy". I'm sorry to Godwin the thread, but it's pertinent. The push on "british values" (nationalism) and "preventing non-violent extremism" (such doublespeak) and "combatting islam" is fucking terrifying to anyone even vaguely familiar with the events that preceded the holocaust and the second world war. The surveillance state we find ourse…

Not every cultural clash should be compared to the Holocaust. There are plenty of historical examples of societies that got eaten from within when they couldn't maintain their culture in the face of aggressive foreign ones.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#63

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 12:17 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #20

Nursie wrote: post #7

The political silence on this issue is indeed deafening. As was the press silence (other than the Guardian). The press in this country are far more interested in reality tv, political infighting, fanning flames about 'immigrants' and what the royals are up to. And I suspect it's because most of the public don't care either. There are people who would like privacy, who think that GCHQ should be accountable and then th…

Don't forget about "the muslim problem" and the "international islamic conspiracy". I'm sorry to Godwin the thread, but it's pertinent. The push on "british values" (nationalism) and "preventing non-violent extremism" (such doublespeak) and "combatting islam" is fucking terrifying to anyone even vaguely familiar with the events that preceded the holocaust and the second world war. The surveillance state we find ourse…

There is certainly a slippery slope, but I think we need to recognise that there exist at least some organisations acting under the "Islamic" banner that are extraordinarily dangerous. 'ISIS' and 'Boko Haram' are the two most recent that come to mind. They already have a track record of mass execution of their enemies.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#64

Post by easytiger » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 12:17 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #7

The political silence on this issue is indeed deafening. As was the press silence (other than the Guardian). The press in this country are far more interested in reality tv, political infighting, fanning flames about 'immigrants' and what the royals are up to. And I suspect it's because most of the public don't care either. There are people who would like privacy, who think that GCHQ should be accountable and then th…

> political silence on this issue is indeed deafening.

The UK Government does not comment on issues of national security. End of discussion.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#65

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 12:21 PM UTC

wolf550e wrote: post #57

madaxe_again wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget about "the muslim problem" and the "international islamic conspiracy". I'm sorry to Godwin the thread, but it's pertinent. The push on "british values" (nationalism) and "preventing non-violent extremism" (such doublespeak) and "combatting islam" is fucking terrifying to anyone even vaguely familiar with the events that preceded the holocaust and the second world war. The surveillance state we find ourse…

Why would you think the UK would round up and execute its Muslim citizens? And if nothing like this has any chance of occurring, just finding out who is in contact with real terrorists and who isn't seems useful, whether they're Muslim terrorists or Breivik. It is of course vitally important that information gathered for this purpose cannot be used for commercial or political ends, which is the hard part (maybe impos…

'Terrorist' is fundamentally a political label, so it's not possible to separate the political and security questions.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#66

Post by lucastx » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 12:22 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #18

jpgvm wrote: post #11

There can be no secret laws in a democracy. Else it's not a damn democracy.

Since the secret laws are actually out there, what conclusion does this fact support?

Maybe we don't actually have a democracy?

You know, we have been watching, for more than a year now, story after story telling us that the Five Eyes intercept, filter and store a range of communications between allegedly criminals, mere suspects and whole populations.

A tiny portion information is then used to "fight crime", while the rest sits there, waiting to be used for the economic and political interest of those nations, and to stop dissent and social movements -- even it the information is not used, the mere fact that somebody is watching works damn well to bring fear and distrust to potential unrest.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#67

Post by collyw » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 12:24 PM UTC

duairc wrote: post #26

peterlawest wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself an educated, well-informed person, and I have no problem whatsoever with government surveillance. Like anything, it can be abused, but I don't think that outweighs the benefits. I think it's sad that it makes you 'angry' that some people simply disagree with you. We have a democracy, and obviously only a minority consider this to be an issue of concern. If you have a problem with it, stand for elect…

> We have a democracy, and obviously only a minority consider this to be an issue of concern. > > If you have a problem with it, stand for election. There must be a name for this kind of fallacy.

I call it "faith in democracy", as there is no evidence of it happening in any modern "democracy". Just got to believe....

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#68

Post by mike_hearn » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 12:28 PM UTC

peterlawest wrote: post #32

aluhut wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these benefits?

I believe it helps ensure security. I don't believe they'd bother doing it if it didn't. I think you're a bit arrogant for assuming they give a fuck what you write to your girlfriend on iMessages. I know you probably disagree with that, but this is my point - not everyone agrees that surveillance is bad. And I'm not alone - I think most people don't really care about surveillance. And this isn't a conspiracy - it's j…

> I think you're a bit arrogant for assuming they give a fuck what you write to your girlfriend on iMessages.

This statement is nonsensical, because we know now that recording and reading what we write to our girlfriends on iMessage is exactly what they are doing. Indeed GCHQ have watched so many webcam chats amongst random people they can tell us how many are pornographic to three significant digits of accuracy. This is very much the definition of "giving a fuck".

Given that the premise of your post is incorrect, I wonder why you hold the opinions you do.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#69

Post by mike_hearn » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 12:30 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #2

> GCHQ is intercepting all communications - emails, text messages, and communications sent via “platforms” such as Facebook and Google – before determining whether they fall into the “internal” or “external” categories This should raise some interesting questions about the methods used considering all of that communication is going over TLS.

TLS all the time on these big websites is a very recent phenomenon, only being activated in the past couple of years. What's more, GCHQ were tapping internal traffic between Google datacenters which wasn't encrypted until Snowden, so TLS between customer and web server only slowed them down.

I suspect nowadays they're finding it much harder, but in these documents they're being asked to explain their pre-existing policies which were developed when TLS and internal encryption were much less widely used.

Re: UK intelligence forced to reveal secret policy for mass surveillance

#70

Post by eevilspock » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 12:30 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #63

madaxe_again wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget about "the muslim problem" and the "international islamic conspiracy". I'm sorry to Godwin the thread, but it's pertinent. The push on "british values" (nationalism) and "preventing non-violent extremism" (such doublespeak) and "combatting islam" is fucking terrifying to anyone even vaguely familiar with the events that preceded the holocaust and the second world war. The surveillance state we find ourse…

There is certainly a slippery slope, but I think we need to recognise that there exist at least some organisations acting under the "Islamic" banner that are extraordinarily dangerous. 'ISIS' and 'Boko Haram' are the two most recent that come to mind. They already have a track record of mass execution of their enemies.

There is also an organization operating under the "Democracy" banner that is extremely dangerous. Extremely dangerous to democracy, which is the thing we have to protect us from, amongst many other things, mass executions by the State.